satellite image of SE wildfires

Another good satellite image:

fires in the southeast

Wildfires have made their presence known in the southeast over the last few days. Mostly due to the drought.

the short cart

When I go to the grocery store, we usually have a few options for shopping cart choices. There's the big cart, those people usually own Hummers, or might stop by Costco on the way home. There's the medium cart, which is a great choice unless you're stocking up for Y2K. And there's, what I like to call, the "short cart"

what's the point of choosing a cart like this when you've taken 2 years off your life looking for a parking spot. besides, these carts give shoppers a great disadvantage. mainly due to the fact that when you're coming around a corner out of an aisle, i can't see you. I'm already sticking out half way into the main aisle and I've beat you there. I'm in, you're just surprised because you weren't looking and have found yourself stuck in an awkward position. they might as well weld a yield sign on those carts facing the driver. yeah you can spin around on a dime, but i can claim my presence in aisle 13 while i'm still in the frozen section.

state names

what's up with South Dakota anyways. there's nothing South about Dakota. That must be why no one lives there. they got sick of explaining that there's a north dakota, hence the 'South' in their states name. Same with North Carolina, West Virginia... and Why isn't Virginia; "East Virginia". THAT would make sense.

We should rename the states, and while we're at it, name them with some sort of comprehensive geographic references. no scratch that idea. Chances are they'd hold some YouTube contest to name the states...

of nothing.

its frustrating when you have idea after idea of something to blog about, but no time to do it. then you have all the time and motivation in the world and nothing can come to mind. so since this is about nothing, you're likely thinking i have time...well i don't. hopefully this won't be succeeded by another "its been a long time" entry.

ugh.

oh here's some good content: so my last entry has that temp outlook, and talks all about how warm its going to be this winter. well when i got up this morning it was 6°, which doesn't matter much because i was inside. but when i went out to my car it was 8° which is a little improvement. i dont think we'll make it above 30° today. Not too bad, but for nothern virginia, which, dispite the impression the regional title gives, is actually more south than north. unless you're from Florida, Alabama, or SOUTH Carolina.

warmer winter on the way

Remember last winter? looks like we've ordered up another round of that. pretty soon we'll just be able to walk in and say "the usual please"

smart

These cars are called "smart" sold by Mercedes these cars are making thier debut in the US. This couple pulled into the grocery store just ahead of us. Right before they pulled into the parking lot, which was packed beyond belief. I joking said "they'll have to share a spot!" sure enough...
MSNBC Article

I don't know how i feel about the safety of these vehicles. I saw a full size Dodge truck tailgating these cars, i wondered if the driver of the truck even knew it was in front of him. I'd like to see what kind of safety ratings these have in the US. I bet they use "Crash Smarties"

wikirage

wikirage is the latest....wiki.....rage.....
sort of, well almost exactly like Google's Hot Trends, it tracks what wikipedia articles have had the most edits in the last hour, 6 hours, day, 3 days, week and month. The results are quite interesting. Once you click on an item in the listing, you'll see a chart showing the last month trend for that item, as well as a description,a nd side panel listing of the 25 articles above or below the article you clicked.

VMWare and General Dynamics develop system for NSA

General Dynamics C4 Systems and VMWare are developing a workstation that can process multiple levels of Classified, AND Unclassified via virtualization. It'll be interesting to see them pull it off. There's alot of people out there that don't like change, and new technology tends to frighten those in the IT Security field. This will change how things have been done for decades. For most classified environments there's a physical separation requirement of 1 meter (between classified and unclassified). Now we'll be talking about putting both environments on the same hardware. TEMPEST is going to have a fun time with this one.

confessions of a sys admin

sometimes i type "whoami" just to see "administrator"

my fantasy football team

I ended up getting first pick in the draft, that got me Tomlinson. I haven't made or strategized any transactions. Here's my current roster, for those who care.

QB: Matt Hasselbeck (Sea)
QB: Rex Grossman (Chi)
RB: LaDainian Tomlinson (SD)
RB: Cedric Benson (Chi)
RB: Jerious Norwood (Atl)
RB: Chester Taylor (Min)
RB: Chris Henry (Ten)
RB: Kevin Faulk (NE)
WR: Terrell Owens (Dal)
WR: Donald Driver (GB)
WR: Jerry Porter (Oak)
WR: Brandon Jones (Ten)
TE: Dallas Clark (Ind)
Kicker: Jason Hanson (Det)
Defense: Seattle

fantasy football

This is my first time doing fantasy football. The only other fantasy sport i've done is Fantasy Golf. I've never been a huge football fan, but who knows, maybe this will change everything.
Our draft is tonight, and I'm pretty certain that I have the slightest clue what I plan on doing. I know three things: a) pick several good running backs. b) dont sweat if you dont get an amazing quarterback. c) while at someone's house, or out in public, and a random football game is on TV, and someone on your team scores a touchdown...dont scream "that guy's on my fantasy team!!" like a little girl.

my [current] dream car

so if someone handed me 1 million dollars. I would buy this car:

TWOAT for 11-AUG 1130

...
1130 AM EDT SAT AUG 11 2007
...
A VIGOROUS TROPICAL WAVE HAS EMERGED FROM AFRICA OVER THE FAR
EASTERN ATLANTIC OCEAN. GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SYSTEM IS
POSSIBLE DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS AS IT MOVES WESTWARD AT 15
TO 20 MPH.
...
$$
FORECASTER KNABB

GFS shows hurricane on the East Coast 25-AUG

This image is the GFS model MSLP 10M WIND 2M TEMP for AUG 25th.

There's alot of chatter about a wave coming off the coast of Africa. Most models are showing it forming into a tropical storm over the next few days. Right now the GFS model is showing it making landfall right into the mouth of the Chesapeak Bay. hitting Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Some other runs are showing a trough pushing it down into the gulf and making direct landfall on New Orleans. There's no way to tell until it forms into a storm and has some momentum. They'll have a much better idea of exactly where it will make landfall if it does 3-6 days from now.

cricket

I realized today that I've heard the game of cricket explained so many times while working here that I think I should take a shot at going pro.

the return of....nothing

I'm relieved to find that I've ignored blogging, which i think is out of style now, for only 5 months. It felt like a longer time. I hope to post some more interesting, and more frequent content. (Insert foot in mouth now)

rss feeds

I've been using Google Reader for a while. Until recently I hadn't realized its full potential. For instance; Google News send you an email alert for news items of interest once a week/day or as it happens. This can be disapointing and can clutter your inbox. With RSS you can search for a term on google news and click RSS or ATOM on the left side and subscribe to that in your Reader and you'll get stuff as it happens, or when you check it. This goes for Xanga subscriptions too...

Another great, and obvious use is blogs. Xanga and blogger both have RSS feeders. Its alot easier than getting an email each morning for the previous days post, which has already been commented all over and entries entered on top of it.

You can see my shared reads in the side panel. Those are the last 10 items I've "shared" you can also see my shares in a page format, which itself has a feed.

I really think with the increased visibility that Google Reader (which is still a apart of Google Labs) is getting, that RSS and ATOM feeds will become more and more popular. Some have started embedding ads banners into thier feeds. This is easily blockable with firefox.

not so fun fact

more people have died (45) from tornadoes from Jan. 1 to March 1 this year, than any other year in the past 10 years.

March in like a Lion

From Weather

With 31 tornadoes on the first day of March, it was definitely a strong start to meteorological Spring. Sadly, more than 15 people lost their lives, most of them at a school in Missouri with dozens more injured from these storms.